Curry Squirt....

Originally Posted by bugshield

VERY cool.

I take it that your fork survived all this in style. What fork do you have?

I wouldn't know where to start the calculations on how much load this fork got when it bounced off the second half of a double but I would guess SUBSTANTIALLY more than the one I folded. Pugsley dirt jump disaster!

...best color name ever! I'm mentioning this because that's the color of the year of my bike/fork; built up from separate NOS eBay purchases so I'm not sure of the exact vintage but I'm guessing the pair is 3~4 years old. It's the stock offset 135 mm Pugs fork with the canti bosses but no bottle mounts.

I also can get my hands on a Pugs Necro that I built up for my son; that frame came new from an online dealer but the fork was from eBay (also NOS 135 mm offset but the newer non-canti model) . Both frames are large (20") sizes.

I very seldom (until just recently) do stoppies on my Pugs although I've never had any qualms about doing this; Surly's stuff always seems "hell-bent for leather" stout. On the other hand, my son is often doing stoppies on his and that's the main reason your fork failure has me so interested in this topic. I'm a little under 200# soaking wet but my son is 250# plus---he scares me sometimes with his escapdes. (BTW his bike has BB7's)

The column strength of the fork blades should be adequate (again; I can only assume what the wall thickness is) for most riding; I suspect the wheels might taco before the fork buckles (more damned assumptions) ---but it's the reactive torque from the brake that gives me reason for concern. Puts a bending moment into the small end of an end-loaded column that's way over my head to analyze. That why I'm hoping that "real" engineer will surface!

Surly here. Wow, that is a nasty bend. We hope you managed to roll out ok. We are sorry you had this experience with one of our products.

Please work with your LBS to get the fork sent in as soon as possible. It will be covered under warranty. We really need to check it out and see what is going on here. This obviously shouldn't happen, and we will be investigating immediately once we get the fork back.

If anyone else has any problems with any Surly product, ever, please feel free to contact us directly or work with your local bicycle shop. Just send an email to derby(at)surlybikes.com. We value your feedback, and you. Thanks, Surly

Surly here. Wow, that is a nasty bend. We hope you managed to roll out ok. We are sorry you had this experience with one of our products.

Please work with your LBS to get the fork sent in as soon as possible. It will be covered under warranty. We really need to check it out and see what is going on here. This obviously shouldn't happen, and we will be investigating immediately once we get the fork back.

If anyone else has any problems with any Surly product, ever, please feel free to contact us directly or work with your local bicycle shop. Just send an email to derby(at)surlybikes.com. We value your feedback, and you. Thanks, Surly

This is such a refreshing attitude compared with other companies that give so many problems over warranty claims!

Surly here. Wow, that is a nasty bend. We hope you managed to roll out ok. We are sorry you had this experience with one of our products.

Please work with your LBS to get the fork sent in as soon as possible. It will be covered under warranty. We really need to check it out and see what is going on here. This obviously shouldn't happen, and we will be investigating immediately once we get the fork back.

If anyone else has any problems with any Surly product, ever, please feel free to contact us directly or work with your local bicycle shop. Just send an email to derby(at)surlybikes.com. We value your feedback, and you. Thanks, Surly

Thanks for checking in. The process is already rolling with my LBS but no real news yet. Please PM me if you want to get more info to associate this case with that one.

Hi I'm new to the forums.I'm a machinist and pro gunsmith and know allot about metallurgy and heat treatment. After a part is hardened it is tempered or drawn to soften it to the necessary hardness to meet spec's and remove brittleness.After welding or hydro-forming the parts are often stress relieved to prevent cracking or twisting & warpage while this is a heat treatment is dose nothing to harden the material it may in fact remove unwanted hardness.A part can be tested with a triangle file if the teeth of the file skip off the surface it has been hardened.The dropouts may be hard and the forks unhardened.I hope your problem is fixed soon.

I tried to order a 100mm fork from both Treefort and Fatbikes.com for a generator hub Pugsley I'm thinking of building up; both sites had showed them in stock when I ordered. Treefort said the fork has been discontinued and they have no more stock, and Fat bikes said it's been recalled and Surly is working on a new one. I emailed them back to see if there were more details, but haven't heard anything.

I tried to order a 100mm fork from both Treefort and Fatbikes.com for a generator hub Pugsley I'm thinking of building up; both sites had showed them in stock when I ordered. Treefort said the fork has been discontinued and they have no more stock, and Fat bikes said it's been recalled and Surly is working on a new one. I emailed them back to see if there were more details, but haven't heard anything.

A couple days ago I called Surly up and spoke to one of the crew about the 100mm Pugs fork. Discontinued; no further information available. I would really love to get hold of something that could accommodate an Endomorph if needed yet allow me to run a 100mm dyno hub up front.

Searching for a closeout Pugsley fork led me down a rabbit hole which ended at Vicious Cycles. Does anyone have experience with their Snow fork? Looks like I may end up going that route if all else fails.

A couple days ago I called Surly up and spoke to one of the crew about the 100mm Pugs fork. Discontinued; no further information available. I would really love to get hold of something that could accommodate an Endomorph if needed yet allow me to run a 100mm dyno hub up front.

Searching for a closeout Pugsley fork led me down a rabbit hole which ended at Vicious Cycles. Does anyone have experience with their Snow fork? Looks like I may end up going that route if all else fails.

The End:

I was advised by my LBS to stop posting about this but I know some things that others may like to know and don't appreciate gag orders.

It's pretty discomforting to me that I haven't seen an official recall announcement from Surly on the New 100mm Pugsley fork but I've been told by a couple dealers that it was recalled and would be reproduced (when I was hunting for an old 100mm Pug fork). Time may be your ally. Otherwise, the old 100mm Pugsley fork might be an option if you can find one.

Surly moved me to a 135mm replacement fork but it had other problems; The brake mount was way out of plane and could not be used without modifying the crap out of an adapter. Sorry I didn't say so earlier, I thought it would be a good time cool off and reflect on all this for a while.

I finally bought a Carver O'Beast fork and that was the end of fork problems for me.

To Surly's credit, the recall started before they even had my fork back. I assume my pictures prompted further testing and the results of those tests caused the recall and that they did not recall a bunch of forks based solely on my pictures. I think my case, at this point, got caught in a massive backwash of forks and fell through the cracks.

To Surly's discredit; It seemed to take forever to get a replacement, a shipping deadline was missed, a shipment was sent incomplete, the replacement had QC problems, only Surly dealers have been advised of the recall, and it was implied if not stated outright that I should keep this quiet (Oops).

There you have it; the rest of the story.

Last edited by bugshield; 02-01-2013 at 09:58 AM.
Reason: One of my statements was about a message that was implied and not a quote.

Odd story, especially the STFU part of it...
If it actually has been recalled, I hope Surly will make a statement ... Surly?
I'm just building up a new wheel for the 100mm pugsley fork I bought new not so long ago... am I risking my pristine smile by riding one?

Odd story, especially the STFU part of it...
If it actually has been recalled, I hope Surly will make a statement ... Surly?
I'm just building up a new wheel for the 100mm pugsley fork I bought new not so long ago... am I risking my pristine smile by riding one?

Might want to check with Surly before building up the new wheel to be sure.

Surly's silence...

Originally Posted by bugshield

The End:

I was advised by my LBS to stop posting about this but I know some things that others may like to know and don't appreciate gag orders.

It's pretty discomforting to me that I haven't seen an official recall announcement from Surly on the New 100mm Pugsley fork but I've been told by a couple dealers that it was recalled and would be reproduced (when I was hunting for an old 100mm Pug fork). Time may be your ally. Otherwise, the old 100mm Pugsley fork might be an option if you can find one.

Surly moved me to a 135mm replacement fork but it had other problems; The brake mount was way out of plane and could not be used without modifying the crap out of an adapter. Sorry I didn't say so earlier, I thought it would be a good time cool off and reflect on all this for a while.

I finally bought a Carver O'Beast fork and that was the end of fork problems for me.

To Surly's credit, the recall started before they even had my fork back. I assume my pictures prompted further testing and the results of those tests caused the recall and that they did not recall a bunch of forks based solely on my pictures. I think my case, at this point, got caught in a massive backwash of forks and fell through the cracks.

To Surly's discredit; It seemed to take forever to get a replacement, a shipping deadline was missed, a shipment was sent incomplete, the replacement had QC problems, only Surly dealers have been advised of the recall, and it was implied if not stated outright that I should keep this quiet (Oops).

There you have it; the rest of the story.

...speaks volumes. Between this fork and the cracks on certain Pugsly frames they have their hands full. They're probably trying to handle these issues internally before the CPSC steps in. IMHO the frame is more of a cosmetic flaw while the fork could be a real liability. It was interesting that Surly was lurking here and made one post before the silence set in. Orders from on high??? (QBP?) Or is it that they really don't know as of yet what the problems are? Full disclosure is always good... (don't wait until you need to come clean on Oprah!!!)

I'd love to get my hands on a couple of those cracked frames for cheap (out of warranty)

lol they are taking a leap of faith amassing this marketing campaign on their namesake.

yo vik, your blog was one of the reasons I got into a surly.

I've got 4 Surly bikes in my garage and I'll likely buy more down the road. In some categories they are the only show in town.

So far my Surly bikes have treated me well and my customer service interactions with them have been good. Although their customer service seems to work best through a dealer.

If we were chatting about bikes over beers I'd still recommend them to to someone who wanted say a Big Dummy or Pugsley.

That doesn't mean I'm not sympathetic to other folks that aren't getting issues sorted or that they don't screw $hit up sometimes. Even companies that are on the whole pretty good mess up.

I nearly lost my marbles dealing with another company recently getting some customer service for a MTB. A company known for killer customer service. Unfortunately I was the 1-3% of their customers that fell through the cracks - again & again & again! So I can appreciate that it's really hard to have a wide perspective on an issue when you feel screwed over about a particular thing.

Now that I have calmed down I'd be willing to buy from the company in question again.

i have a bent one as well.. only i was going into a corner and the damn thing folded on me.. i have a pugsley and a neck romancer... i was on the standard pugs when it happened.. my gf was on the neck romancer.. my pugs has the red offset fork.. neck romancer has the moonlander.. that will be getting checked asap to make sure it is.. so now we know of two for sure.. only i did suffer a few minor injures.. some pretty big bruises on my upper leg and nice one on my shin.. first i thought i might have busted my leg. dont know what part of the bike i hit with it.. but its a deep ass bruise.. and bounced my head off the dirt.. thankfully i was wearing a helmet... so other than a few small scrapes and cuts, and a few gnarly bruises and a sore neck i made out ok.. coulda been worse i guess.. wrote the company and email.. shouldnt have quality control problems on a bike that costs what it does... brake was rubbing really bad.. wasnt rideable.. we were 10 miles from civilization deep in the woods.. so me and a buddy of mine popped the front wheel off.. and had to actually put our weight on it to bend it back so it would be rideable to some degree.. kinda a bummer on a $1800.00 bike that really doesnt have much special stuff on it other than fat tires.. i was looking at getting a surly karate monkey.. cause i was in love with my surly's until now... wanted to go with their 29er single speed cause of all the things you can do with them.. but might have to go another route now.. they brag about their parts being made in taiwan because of the quality taiwan produces.. hmm.. somebody over their seemed to miss the mark.. i talked to a guy at surly the other day and supposedly the company that builds their forks used the wrong thickness of tubing on that day.. how the hell does somebody just in one day change the diameter of tubing on about 975 forks...

i talked to a guy at surly the other day and supposedly the company that builds their forks used the wrong thickness of tubing on that day.. how the hell does somebody just in one day change the diameter of tubing on about 975 forks...

I weighed my uncut fork at 1150 grams and expected it to weigh 1168. I would think that thicker tubing would be a difference of more than 18 grams but what do I know?

I do have some pictures but doesnt look as severe as yours.. it wasnt anyways.. but now its not because I had to bend it back ad much as I could to ride it out of the woods.. I dont wanna post pictures yet.. I dont think surly sucks by any means and dont want anyone to think that.. just frustrating that it happened.. I know stuff happebs and sometimes stuff just gets missed or whatever.. were all human.. but definently need to get word out to the people with the bad forks so nobody gets hurt in a bad way.. can u post a pic of the fork u went to?

Talked to matt moore at quality bike products today.. he assured me the new forks were good to go.. they recognized whatever the issue was and it was corrected.. I feel confident after talking with him that all of us fat bikers surly and salsa riders are good to go.. I mentioned maybe putting the word out on some forums and what not just so those bikers that maybe dont go to their dealers for every repair can hear about the fork recall.. I still love my bike.. was frustrated at first bit they were on the ball and contacted me asap.. I didnt wanna ride either of my fatbikes until I had a better understanding of the situation.. I feel confident my new fork will handle just about anything I throw at it! He told me they did the new testing and they passed! Thanks surly and riders get your forks checked out.. and hopefully I see you all out on the trail!! Ride on!

my LBS claims that my bike wasn't one affected by the recall, yet I noticed today that the powdercoat is cracked above the disc mounts. Anyone have any advice?

Contact Surly. You could have a fork that needs to be replaced and one that is not part of the recall. I wouldn't take any chances with my front wheel/fork - the consequences of a failure are too gnarly.

Took it into Bicycle Revolutions, my trusted Surly Dealer in Philly. One of the mechs looked at the cracked powder coat on the front of the fork above the disc mount and thought that it did look like a valid warranty item. I'm bringing it back in on thursday for the shop owner to take a look at and begin the warranty process. I'm not looking forward to having the bike out of commission for a week or more and a little disappointed that the replacement fork won't match, but that's the way of it, I guess.

Go check the OP on page 1; his was a 100mm fork; not the 135mm offset.

You need to check the date stamped on the steer tube.

Check the Surly site for recall specifics.

+1

A question for those of you who got replacement 100mm forks: did your forks come with anythingcage mounts on the legs? Mine doesn't have those anymore (I hope cable ties and duct tape will stick ), also it seems beefier - suddenly fitting an inflated tyre into the fork became a great hassle. Maybe it's just Knard vs Larry casing..?
Anyways, for such a big recall Surly were quite fast with suppling replacement forks (two in my case) which is cool.